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Query: UMLS:C0018681 (headache)
 56,091 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Patients suffering from vascular disease are often a challenge for the acute pain service. Ischaemia, impaired wound healing, stump and phantom limb pain often require a complex analgesic regimen. Invasive measures such as spinal or epidural catheters can be very helpful but carry the risk of infection, as shown by this case report. A 53-year-old woman with a ten-year history of diabetes developed arterial vascular disease. Her right lower leg had been amputated two years previously. She was now admitted with necroses of the left forefoot. A bypass operation was performed under general anaesthesia. Because of intractable ischaemic pain, she was provided with an epidural catheter by the acute pain service. The bypass occluded, however, and a few days later her left lower leg also had to be amputated, this operation being performed under epidural anaesthesia with bupivacaine. The catheter was subsequently used for postoperative pain control and as a means to prevent phantom limb pain. When signs of superficial catheter infection were noticed days later, the catheter was immediately removed. Intractable pain then developed in the left leg which could not be sufficiently controlled with opioids and NSAIDs, and so a second epidural catheter was inserted one segment rostrally. Several days later the infected vascular prosthesis had to be removed followed by amputation of the thigh, this operation also being performed in epidural anaesthesia. Eleven days after insertion of the first epidural catheter, the patient complained of low back pain and headache. Examination by a neurologist revealed no signs of intraspinal infection. The second epidural catheter dislocated at this point in time and it was decided to introduce a third one, this being the only means to treat the otherwise intractable stump pain. Ten days later meningism, Kernig's sign and leucocytosis developed. NMR tomography detected intraspinal fluid in the epidural space at the dorsal border of the spinal canal. A hemilaminectomy was performed. The spinal epidural space showed signs of inflammation of the adipose tissue, but no pus. A little necrotic material and residues of an old haematoma were removed and the epidural space was lavaged. Specimens taken from the epidural material revealed colonisation with staphylococcus epidermidis, which was sensitive to the broad spectrum antibiotics formerly given to the patient to treat the infection in the left stump. By the next day, all signs of epiduritis had disappeared and the patient recovered completely.
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PMID:[Epiduritis after long-term pain therapy with an epidural catheter--review of the literature with a current case report]. 932 67

Pain is a major public health problem. The management of orofacial pain may be a difficult challenge to the medical and dental professions. Ideally, severe cases of this type of pain should be treated by a team drawn from several disciplines such as neurology, otolaryngology, dentistry and psychiatry. Trigeminal neuralgia patients develop brief, very severe unilateral pain, usually radiating from the upper or lower jaw toward the ear, and confined to the distribution of the trigeminal nerve. The pain may be triggered by chewing, shaving or exposure to cold wind. Most patients respond to carbamazepine, with phenytoin or baclofen as an alternative. Intractable pain may require surgical treatment. Horton's syndrome (cluster headache) is always unilateral and is often associated with unilateral lacrimation and rhinorrhoea. The pain is extreme, and its typical localisation the eye, forehead, temple, jaws, or teeth. Treatment with ergotamine and sumatriptan has been used with some success, calcium blockers (e.g., verapamil) being used as prophylaxis. Atypical facial pain is a continuous ache with intermittent episodes, localised to non-muscular, non-joint facial areas. The pain may be unilateral or bilateral, and may persist for many years. Typically, these patients consult a variety of specialists, such as dentists and otolaryngologists. Surgical procedures such as tooth extraction or sinus surgery, even if skillfully executed, exacerbate the condition, are are thus contraindicated. If the patient does not respond to reassurance, antidepressants may be tried. In sinusitis, the pain location is dependent upon which paranasal sinus is affected. Routine diagnostic nasal endoscopy and coronal plane computed tomography enable subtle pathological changes that are related to chronic pain to be identified. If medical treatment fails to afford relief, surgery should be considered. Pain, limited range of jaw motion, and joint noises are the common characteristics of temporomandibular disorders. Treatment usually consists of non-surgical means such as splints, occlusal equilibration, and non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs. Surgical treatment is indicated in a few carefully selected cases. Most dental pain is attributable to caries or periodontal disease. When pus is present, drainage affords excellent pain relief. Acute pericoronitis involving mandibular third molars responds to irrigation, removal of maxillary third molar trauma, and--in cases of serious infection--antimicrobial therapy. Early recognition of a case of chronic pain improves the chances of successful management, and avoids frustration and disillusion both to patient and doctor.
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PMID:[Neurologist, otolaryngologist...? Which specialist should treat facial pain?]. 963 Jul 98

Intractable pain, headache or otherwise, is a devastating and life-controlling experience. The need to effectively and aggressively control pain is a fundamental tenet of clinical care. In the past several years, increasing advocacy for continuous opioid therapy has become an important, if not controversial, theme in the development of treatment guidelines and teaching programs. Ironically, the increasing willingness of physicians to prescribe scheduled opioids for their headache and pain patients has occurred in the absence of compelling data demonstrating efficacy or long-term safety. To the contrary, two meta-analyses on chronic noncancer pain (CNCP) and one long-term uncontrolled study on headache patients demonstrate a relatively small number of patients benefiting from the treatment. Recent neuroscience data on the effects of opioids on the brain raise serious concern for long-term safety and also provide the basis for the mechanism by which chronic opioid use might induce progression of headache frequency and severity. Significant adverse effects, including influence on sexual hormonal balances, physical and psychological dependence, the development of opioid-induced hyperalgesia, and cardiac arrhythmia and sudden death that can be seen with standard dosages of methadone, make a strong argument against widespread use of continuous opioid therapy (COT) in otherwise healthy young and middle-aged headache patients. We believe that COT should be used in rare circumstances for chronic headache patients, and propose initial guidelines for selecting patients and monitoring treatment. The physician should be well versed in the details of opioid prescribing, administration, and monitoring, and should be prepared to discontinue opioids when clinical justification, patient behavior, or failure to achieve therapeutic goals make discontinuance necessary.
Headache 2008 Jun
PMID:Continuous opioid therapy (COT) is rarely advisable for refractory chronic daily headache: limited efficacy, risks, and proposed guidelines. 1854 61